4 ms·

New MacBook Airs ridden with bugs

22 points by Mithrandir 16y ago

kelnos 16y ago
Sigh. I ordered one of the new 11"-ers last week. I really should know better. I even thought, "dude, don't buy 1st-rev Apple hardware," but ignored my gut instinct. "Ooh, shiny!" won over.
- FluidDjango 16y ago
  I sympathize. "No 1st gen. Macs" has been my mantra for over 20 years. That said, I am certainly pleased with the 27" iMac I scarfed up upon their intro last year (excuse: I needed a new machine then). On the bright side: The article linked suggests to me that software updates may be all that is required. (Hence: not a huge issue; just requires a little patience). Apple hardware has come (on average) so far in QA from ten years ago.
  - kelnos 16y ago
    Yeah, I'm not devastated, just mildly worried. The main annoyance is I'd like to avoid maintaining a MacOS partition (more room for Linux that way), but of course the Mac partition is required if they release firmware updates. I might not want to get rid of it for a while, just to see. Apparently there's also a weird screen-flashy thing going on as well, which feels like a bit more than an OS/driver issue. But who knows.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    wouldn't these be 2nd gen MBAs?
- rodh257 16y ago
  Isn't this the second Air?
  - arn 16y ago
    it's actually the 3rd generation Air
    - stuartloxton 16y ago
      By generation he means in this design revision - this air is drastically different to the last one. I owned the first Unibody Macbook Pro, ordered it an hour after release... I'm on my third motherboard. Sometimes the first batch of hardware has issues fixed later on.
  - rrmckinley 16y ago
    In name only. New case, new screen, new board, new storage, new everything. Are you doing that thing where you know that it is completely different but you pretend that you don't know? It's a form of lying.
  - kelnos 16y ago
    I think this pretty much qualifies as "first-rev": it's a major redesign and the first 11" Air. Also I'm not really talking about 'generations' in the sense of the MacBook{,Air,Pro}X,Y identifiers you can see in the HW info; more like the main board rev which isn't particularly public unless you take it apart. Apple presumably silently rolls out new board revs as they discover and fix problems.
- swah 16y ago
  Might be naive but... is this going to be your main computer?
  - kelnos 16y ago
    Not sure yet. I used to have a 12" PowerBook as my main computer and I loved it. I have a 13" MBP right now, and frankly it's just too big (yes, I know that might sound weird). I got the 11" MBA, and I absolutely love the form factor. At work when I want to disappear from my desk (where I also have a 13" MBP, attached to a 27" monitor), I grab the Air, hide in a conference room or near some other co-workers' desks and ssh or VNC to one of my other machines and get work done. It's great. The only downside is that the Linux situation is still kinda a mess on the new Airs. Even with all the latest related patches applied to 2.6.37-rc1, I get no working USB storage (devices enumerate but later error out before claimed by a driver). With BIOS emulation I get a crappy emulated PATA controller. With EFI mode the SATA controller is detected properly, but I have to pass 'noefi' to the kernel to get text console to work (kinda counterintuitive), and then the kernel panics while loading udev. I still have a lot more to investigate and try (limited time with the crazy startup), but on a less bleeding-edge laptop I'd've had Linux working just fine in a few hours at worst.
sumeeta 16y ago
This isn’t as big of a deal as the headline makes it out to be. The article describes a video playback issue that Apple’s already released a software fix for.
- Qz 16y ago
  Your statement is misleading. The article does indeed describe that playback issue, but then goes on to describe a number of other issues reported by users that go a bit beyond a 'video playback issue'. So yes, probably not as big a deal as the headline makes it out, but also not just one bug already addressed.
sjlb 16y ago
Couple of issues is haaaaaardly "ridden with bugs". One issue already addressed by Apple. If thousands of users were experiencing the same dozens of bugs then the subject is warranted .. otherwise .. just an attempt (admittedly probably successful!) to generate traffic at thinq.co.uk
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - jrockway 16y ago
    thinq.co.uk has stood by Apple before Someone dispatch the re-education squad!
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
lispm 16y ago
Datapoint: My new MacBook Air has had zero problems so far.
sz 16y ago
I've had some sleep issues and errors being thrown by UserEventAgent about SCNetworkSignatureCopyActiveIdentifiers returning nil both of which seem to be caused by Transmission, but otherwise it's behaving fine. (13" Air) I do wish this platform had better diagnostic tools.

22 points by Mithrandir 16y ago

Sigh. I ordered one of the new 11"-ers last week. I really should know better. I even thought, "dude, don't buy 1st-rev Apple hardware," but ignored my gut instinct. "Ooh, shiny!" won over.

FluidDjango 16y ago
I sympathize. "No 1st gen. Macs" has been my mantra for over 20 years. That said, I am certainly pleased with the 27" iMac I scarfed up upon their intro last year (excuse: I needed a new machine then). On the bright side: The article linked suggests to me that software updates may be all that is required. (Hence: not a huge issue; just requires a little patience). Apple hardware has come (on average) so far in QA from ten years ago.
- kelnos 16y ago
  Yeah, I'm not devastated, just mildly worried. The main annoyance is I'd like to avoid maintaining a MacOS partition (more room for Linux that way), but of course the Mac partition is required if they release firmware updates. I might not want to get rid of it for a while, just to see. Apparently there's also a weird screen-flashy thing going on as well, which feels like a bit more than an OS/driver issue. But who knows.
- elblanco 16y ago
  wouldn't these be 2nd gen MBAs?
rodh257 16y ago
Isn't this the second Air?
- arn 16y ago
  it's actually the 3rd generation Air
  - stuartloxton 16y ago
    By generation he means in this design revision - this air is drastically different to the last one. I owned the first Unibody Macbook Pro, ordered it an hour after release... I'm on my third motherboard. Sometimes the first batch of hardware has issues fixed later on.
- rrmckinley 16y ago
  In name only. New case, new screen, new board, new storage, new everything. Are you doing that thing where you know that it is completely different but you pretend that you don't know? It's a form of lying.
- kelnos 16y ago
  I think this pretty much qualifies as "first-rev": it's a major redesign and the first 11" Air. Also I'm not really talking about 'generations' in the sense of the MacBook{,Air,Pro}X,Y identifiers you can see in the HW info; more like the main board rev which isn't particularly public unless you take it apart. Apple presumably silently rolls out new board revs as they discover and fix problems.
swah 16y ago
Might be naive but... is this going to be your main computer?
- kelnos 16y ago
  Not sure yet. I used to have a 12" PowerBook as my main computer and I loved it. I have a 13" MBP right now, and frankly it's just too big (yes, I know that might sound weird). I got the 11" MBA, and I absolutely love the form factor. At work when I want to disappear from my desk (where I also have a 13" MBP, attached to a 27" monitor), I grab the Air, hide in a conference room or near some other co-workers' desks and ssh or VNC to one of my other machines and get work done. It's great. The only downside is that the Linux situation is still kinda a mess on the new Airs. Even with all the latest related patches applied to 2.6.37-rc1, I get no working USB storage (devices enumerate but later error out before claimed by a driver). With BIOS emulation I get a crappy emulated PATA controller. With EFI mode the SATA controller is detected properly, but I have to pass 'noefi' to the kernel to get text console to work (kinda counterintuitive), and then the kernel panics while loading udev. I still have a lot more to investigate and try (limited time with the crazy startup), but on a less bleeding-edge laptop I'd've had Linux working just fine in a few hours at worst.

sumeeta 16y ago

This isn’t as big of a deal as the headline makes it out to be. The article describes a video playback issue that Apple’s already released a software fix for.

Qz 16y ago
Your statement is misleading. The article does indeed describe that playback issue, but then goes on to describe a number of other issues reported by users that go a bit beyond a 'video playback issue'. So yes, probably not as big a deal as the headline makes it out, but also not just one bug already addressed.

sjlb 16y ago

Couple of issues is haaaaaardly "ridden with bugs". One issue already addressed by Apple. If thousands of users were experiencing the same dozens of bugs then the subject is warranted .. otherwise .. just an attempt (admittedly probably successful!) to generate traffic at thinq.co.uk

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- jrockway 16y ago
  thinq.co.uk has stood by Apple before Someone dispatch the re-education squad!
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

lispm 16y ago

Datapoint: My new MacBook Air has had zero problems so far.

sz 16y ago

I've had some sleep issues and errors being thrown by UserEventAgent about SCNetworkSignatureCopyActiveIdentifiers returning nil both of which seem to be caused by Transmission, but otherwise it's behaving fine. (13" Air) I do wish this platform had better diagnostic tools.